Box Keeper

About the game

Box Keeper is a very popular and addictive puzzle game. It is a Sokoban implementation in C# for Windows. The player can push the boxes and he should move them to specific locations. Sokoban was created in 1981 by Hiroyuki Imabayashi and since then it is implemented in a plethora of platforms including computers, video game consoles and digital cameras. Solving the levels is challenging but the real challenge is to solve them with the minimum number of moves. Box Keeper v1.0 contains the original 50 levels and their difficulty increases almost based on their order. Version 1.1 has another 50 levels. Theoretically, there is an unlimited undo and redo functionality in Box Keeper to help you save time.

Every level has a unique code, you need to save each code or else you will not be able to continue from that level until you replay the previous one. It is up to the user to save the level codes. If you have a level code, put it in the box saying level code and press enter or click the play button to go to that level. Box Keeper is freeware and portable, this means that you don’t install anything in your machine and it is absolutely free. See the requirements section to find what is needed to play the game.

Wall square might not be very nice but this is me showing my respect to Pink Floyd. I used the same image style as they did on their album called The Wall. I’ve watched The Wall by Roger Waters two years ago (Lisbon 2011) and it was amazing. I highly recommend that show, in the end I was applauding so hard that my hands hurt.

New users might find it difficult to complete some levels but don’t give up. Experienced users can finish the game in days. It took me a weekend to finish version 1.0 and half day for version 1.1 but I was familiar with it and I wasn’t trying for the optimal solutions. Let me know with your comments about recommendations or issues you might find. If you don’t want me to publish the comments start with ‘Do not publish’. Even though Box Keeper is completely free, I would appreciate any donations to keep developing it.

How to play

Rules

Even though solving this puzzle is very challenging, the rules are very simple. Like, chess, Box Keeper is played on a board of squares. Those squares can be either wall or floor. Some floor squares have boxes and some are marked as targets. Player can move in empty squares, horizontally or vertically and can push single boxes, not walls. Player should push the boxes to the target locations. Level is finished when all boxes are placed to the target locations.

Movement

Player can be moved with the arrow keys (up, down, left and right). You can undo movements with Ctrl+Z and redo them with Ctrl+Y. Do not move the player to the walls because he can’t push them, also he can’t push more than one boxes at the same time. If you do, you will find out that he is a human being and his body will react to the pressure.

Buttons

Undo: Undo a movement, if it is kept pressed it continues to undo moves until the beginning of the level.

Redo: Redo a movement, if it is kept pressed it continues to redo moves up to the latest one.

Restart: It restarts the current level. If you restart you loose the movement history so you can’t undo.

Speaker: It toggles between sound and mute. Default is with enabled sound effects.

About: It opens the about window that shows the version and the developer of the game.

Play: It changes the level based on the code in the box. If you want to go to a specific level, put the level code in the box and press the play button.

Copy to clipboard: It copies the level code to the clipboard. Then you can paste it anywhere in order to come back to that level later.

Screenshots

Videos

Spoiler Alert: The videos show different solutions of the first level so do not watch them before you play it yourself.

This is how someone new to Box Keeper puzzle game would solve the first level:

After understanding the game, users can find ways to save moves. This is a better solution:

You can save moves while positioning the boxes to the target locations and have an even better solution:

For the optimal solution you need to consider every aspect and calculate all the steps. After that you can finally find the optimal solution with the minimum number of moves which is 230 for the first level:

Requirements

Downloads

The download file is a .zip archive file that can open with any zip program. Even if you don’t have any, Windows can open it for you. Extract it anywhere you want and start playing. The file size of the archive is less than 3 MB and program’s size is around 3 MB. If you get any warnings by anti-virus software they are false and it is because I encrypt my software.

New version (1.1) is now available for you. 50 more levels to tease your brain. They are easier than original 50 of version 1. I am planning to create one version for kids and one for advanced players that find new levels very easy. When depends on the demand but it will hopefully be this year.

Version 2.0 is released. It contains 50 levels for beginners and kids. I had to refactor the engine that generates the random level codes. This will allow me to create versions faster. I am planning two more versions like this one 2.1 and 2.2 that will be released in a month. After that I will focus on difficult levels.

The last sub-version of the version 2 series (v2.2) is here with 60 more levels. There are some levels that need some imagination but the difficulty is easy-medium. Version 3 will have difficult levels and user interface changes. Leave a comment if you finished all levels from all versions.

This game is the most wonderful game I have found. I am 67 now. I have been playing it since I was 45. I think to play it keeps Alzheimer away from me. I do not know if it is true but I believe so. Thank you very much Michalis for what you have done. From Montevideo, Uruguay. And I also saw Roger Waters when he dropped by Montevideo, some weeks ago. My hands also hurt from applauding him.
Big hugs from Gabriel Sörensen.-